"Don't worry about other people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." - Howard Aiken

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Not as Dumb as We Look

Nice to know overwrought nimrods like Keith Olbermann don't make up the American mind about who's responsible for Katrina's deadly effects:

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 609 adults taken September 5-6 shows:

Blame Game -- 13% said George W. Bush is "most responsible for the problems in New Orleans after the hurricane"; 18% said "federal agencies"; 25% said "state and local officials"; 38% said "no one is to blame"; 6% had no opinion. -- 29% said that "top officials in the federal agencies responsible for handling emergencies should be fired"; 63% said they should not; 8% had no opinion.

5 comments:

Okay, I can say that. I can also say that most media, including Fox News, reported that President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on Saturday, August 27th.

The president's emergency declaration authorizes the FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide appropriate assistance in a number of Louisiana parishes, or counties.

So, the president himself declared Louisiana in a state of emergency, which put FEMA directly in charge of all disaster relief efforts. Check out the CNN article from Monday, September 5, 2005 entitled "Chertoff: Katrina scenario did not exist," in which Chertoff asserts the storm was "breathtaking in its surprise," when the truth is that experts had predicted for decades that a major hurricane would do exactly what Katrina did -- breach the levees, flood the city and cause an unprecedented disaster. Who did NOT know that those levees were built to withstand only a Category 3 storm?

June 23-27, 2002, The Times-Picayune published a 5-part series on what a major hurricane would do to New Orleans:

Hundreds of thousands would be left homeless, and it would take months to dry out the area and begin to make it livable. But there wouldn't be much for residents to come home to. The local economy would be in ruins.

Evacuation is the most certain route to safety, but it may be a nightmare. And 100,000 without transportation will be left behind.

Filling the bowl" is the worst potential scenario for a natural disaster in the United States, emergency officials say.

The projected death and destruction eclipse almost any other natural disaster that people paid to think about catastrophes can dream up.

Thousands will drown while trapped in homes or cars by rising water. Others will be washed away or crushed by debris. Survivors will end up trapped on roofs, in buildings or on high ground surrounded by water, with no means of escape and little food or fresh water, perhaps for several days.

In the past year [would have begun in 2001], Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have begun working with state and local agencies to devise plans on what to do if a Category 5 hurricane strikes New Orleans.

So FEMA has been planning for just such a scenario since 2001, but they were "surprised?"

Chertoff also stated:

It wasn't until comparatively late, shortly before -- a day, maybe a day and a half, before landfall -- that it became clear that this was going to be a Category 4 or 5 hurricane headed for the New Orleans area.

Hello. As CNN also reports:

As far back as Friday, August 26, the National Hurricane Center was predicting the storm could be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall, with New Orleans directly in its path.

Yes, it could have changed paths, but it didn't. Katrina made landfall on Monday, August 29th, two days after Bush had declared the emergency. So why did Michael Brown wait until five hours after landfall to ask permission to send 1,000 FEMA Homeland Security workers to help rescuers? And then give them two days to get there?!? And then act surprised that they had trouble getting in?!?!?

I think it would be insane not to demand an honest investigation into what went wrong with this scenario. This is the kind of performance we expect from our government in times of crisis? This is supposed to reassure us that the Dept of Homeland Security is on top of the response to terrorist attacks? This is what Americans settle for?I don't think so.

Michael Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association until he was asked to resign. Before that he was an estates and family lawyer. When he was made deputy director of FEMA in 2001, he got the job through an old college friend who was heading up FEMA. So much for experience in dealing with disasters!

I am absolutely opposed to putting political appointees into positions where they will make life or death decisions. Give them a nice desk job, a good salary and an impressive title. Just don't ever again put someone so lacking appropriate credentials in charge of saving great numbers of American lives.

Hey, it's that guy anonymous. He sure gets around. He's also a dumbass, and a boring one at that. Read this, this and this, or better still this, and stop being such an ignorant, cowardly punk.

Some problems, disaster preparedness among them, are NOT better managed from afar. To the degree that any person or persons should be blamed for the poor management of an enormous natural disaster that covers a huge area, a sober reading of the available info points directly to the locals.